African View: China’s New Long March

Sixty years of communism in the People’s Republic has lulled some people into forgetting just what committed businessmen the Chinese have been for 3,000 years.

Their methods might be slightly different from those we have been used to from the Western nations we have been dealing with for the past 300 years, but the Chinese I have come across are as ruthless in business as any “master of the universe” on Wall Street.

I have seen them operate at first hand over the past eight years, when I was in government in Ghana.

Many are willing to work seven days a week; if they can get away with paying $2, they will not pay $3; and if you are late with the payment of one interim invoice, they will stop work.